A moment of serendipity led to Cork artist and American author’s collaboration

A CORK-based artist has uniquely collaborated with a U.S writer in an exciting project to highlight the struggle of both immigrants and women.

Joanna Kaminska-Wujek was commissioned by author Jodie Hadlock to create a painting based on her book The Lives of Diamond Bessie to celebrate its publication.

The book is about Irish girl Annie Moore, known later as Diamond Bessie. Pregnant out of wedlock, 16-year-old Annie is sent to live at a convent for ‘fallen women’. When the nuns take her baby, Annie escapes, determined to find a way to be reunited with her daughter, and resorts to prostitution in order to survive.

Joanna’s role in the story happened entirely by chance.

“Jody was visiting Ireland in 2018 while researching her book and while travelling she stopped off at the Old Blarney Post Office Café in Blarney Village, where she saw my paintings hanging on the walls of the café,” she explained.

“Jody fell in love with my art and bought one of my paintings, facilitated by the then owner of the café Lenka Forrest. Lenka was instrumental in passing on my details to Jody, who signed up to my newsletter and soon bought some of my scarves and prints.

“Jody was a great supporter of my work and during the first lockdown she came to my first online art exhibition. We began to communicate and share our ideas and before long she came to me with her proposal for a collaboration.”

That collaboration saw Joanna design a print for a silk scarf entitled Diamond Bessie.

Jody, she says, writes beautifully about Ireland: “I tried to capture this on the scarf design: such as the claddagh ring, or a ship laden with immigrants on its way to America.

“Jody gave me full creative control, which is wonderful, but, as with all my collaborations, we enjoyed consulting each other during the process.

“Communication really is key to a fruitful collaboration, so we exchanged video calls, emails, sketch proposals and artwork.

“When Jody decided on her favourite sketch, I began to work on the painting, which was then scanned before being sent to Italy for production into a silk crepe-de-Chine scarf.”

Joanna is originally from Poland and moved to Cork in 2005.

“I live in Bishopstown with my two teenage sons and we now call Cork our home,” she says.

She likes her art to connect with people and evoke feelings, memories and emotions.

“Ultimately, my art reflects what it means to be human It can be many things to some people, but ultimately, my work is rooted in our hopes and dreams.”

In all, the collaboration took four months.

“The Italian end of the process – making the scarf itself – can take up to four weeks. But there is a lot of work that goes into the design before it ever gets to Italy. Working on ideas, sketching, painting, all take time and in this case, it took almost four months from concept to design to production… it really was a labour of love!”

This collaboration, she says, is a tribute to Annie’s life, and also all immigrants of that generation.

“But it also connected people from this generation across continents. It was a moment of serendipity that Jody came into Lenka’s café that day and saw my work hanging: how important it is for people like me who beaver away in a studio, often in solitude, to have spaces in which to hang our art and share it with people who pass through our lives.

“Both Jody, myself and Lenka come from different parts of the world, but our worlds collided that Sunday afternoon in Lenka’s café, and I’ll always appreciate that.”

The scarves (€250) are available at www.jokamin.com